Another Hamburger On The Grill
by spittlepig
Summary: This is my perception on how things turned out on the other side of the barnyard fence


TITLE: Another Hamburger On The Grill  
AUTHOR: Ananove Crowe  
DISCLAIMER: I have NOTHING against Diane, I have EVERYTHING against Ray :) just thought you'd like to know!!  
  
~*~  
  
Diane Robert's breath came fast as she tried to calm herself, but it just wasn't happening. Too much had just happened in what was supposed to be the most incredible five minutes of her entire life.  
  
Her nerves were on the fritz and her mind wouldn't shut up, no matter what she did. She paced back and forth in her office, her fingers absently playing with the fringe of her shirt and the fingernails of her other hand were being gnawed away by her teeth.  
  
'How could she?' Her mind mulled over the very thought of it. 'Of all the people…' She paused her pacing and strode hastily to her desk, picking up the phone.   
  
"Get Eddie down here!' She commanded, her teeth grinding in the back of her jaw.  
  
There was a moment of angry silence before it climaxed to infuriation.  
  
"What do you mean he's gone?! Well, where the fuck did he go?! Well…find him and bring him back! And tell him he's fired!" With that, she slammed the phone down and went on with her pacing, threatening to create a dip in the floor.  
  
"What do I pay these people for?!" She screamed out to herself, throwing her arms violently up into the air as if to ask the person on the floor above her. She went back to gnawing on her fingernails before she got another idea.  
  
Breaking her pace again, she went back to her desk and picked up the phone again. "Have you lost count on all of them?" She said with forced kindness through clenched teeth. "Well, who do you still have?"  
  
"Good, tell him to get his ass down to my office!" She screamed before slamming down the phone again, returning to her constant ambling across the floor in front of her desk, making sawdust with her high heels.  
  
*MOO*  
  
"How's Diane doing?" Nina asked, looking up from a stack of papers with a wondrous glance.  
  
Ray sighed in pity of himself and stuck up his hand as if to wave her away like an annoying fly. "She's probably shitting bricks," Then he added sarcastically, "thanks for asking."   
  
He didn't break his confidence-sucking stride until he approached the outside of Diane's closed office door. He waited as he watched her through the window, trying to mentally ready himself for the demon that lay inside.  
  
Watching her pace back and forth, back and forth inside her office reminded Ray of a crazed mother lion he had seen pacing back and forth in a small cage at the zoo one time.   
  
They had to put the lion down a week later.   
  
Taking a deep breath to build up the self-assurance he was already drowning in anyway, Ray reluctantly opened the door and stepped inside, quietly closing it behind him.  
  
As he took a breath to say something there was a manicured finger inches away from his nose and a pair of wide, enraged eyes staring him in the face.  
  
"Before you say ANYTHING, Ray Brown, I want you to answer me ONE question."   
  
Diane seemed more suitable to be wearing a camouflaged bucket on her head and getting responses like "SIR, YES SIR!"  
  
"Sure Dee." Ray answered meekly.  
  
"How in the world could she do that to me?!" Diane backed off of him, letting him step away from the door.  
  
"I-I don't know Dee," Ray tried as he cleared his throat and smoothed down his shirt.  
  
"I mean, of all the people in my studio! At the most IMPORTANT of all times!" Her body was tense as she slammed her fingers against the side of her head to illustrate her point. "What was she THINKING?!"  
  
Ray raised his hands in surrender.  
  
"DO you even REALIZE how CLOSE I was to making this show the BEST of the BEST?!" She returned to her pacing, the only thing that seemed to keep her from punching through the walls. "Where are my cigarettes?"  
  
She began opening and slamming the drawers in her desk, shoving things out of the way in desperation.  
  
"I thought you stopped smoking." Ray commented, feeling it safe to get a couple more steps away from the door.  
  
"Then I picked a bad time to stop!" Diane threw up her arms before shoving them down into the top drawer of her desk and pulling out a packet of half-gone cigarettes and a lighter.  
  
She hastily pounded one out onto the desk and lit it, taking a long puff, so long that Ray was almost afraid she might collapse due to lack of oxygen.   
  
Suddenly, her shoulders slumped and she threw herself back into her chair, crossing her arms over her chest like a disgruntled child, but careful not to catch her clothes on fire.  
  
"I was THIS CLOSE, Ray! THIS god damn CLOSE!" She held her fingers up in front of her face, her thumb and pointer finger about half an inch apart. "I HAD the WORLD! I had the ULTIMATE UNGETTABLE GET!"  
  
She took another long puff, her face squeezing into an awkward pucker.  
  
Ray raised an eyebrow in concern and came cautiously forward. "Dee?" He asked, concerned with the way her face was tightened.   
  
She looked up at him with a small whimper before looking down and tightening her face in that awkward way again. It was almost as if she was trying to contort her face into a point.  
  
"A-are you…" he was afraid to ask, "crying?"   
  
"What does it look like I'm doing?!" Diane screamed at him.  
  
He held back his first thought and said the next that came to mind. "Aren't there suppose to be…you know…tears?" He tentatively came forward again.  
  
"Oh for God's sake Ray! I've had too many plastic surgeries! I can't cry!"   
  
Ray had to hold down the urge to burst out with laughter.  
  
"I was going to be right up there with Montel and Ricky Lake!" She kept blubbering on. "Do have any idea how many people were watching my show at that very moment?"  
  
Ray shook his head.  
  
"A LOT!" She raised her hand to wipe away nonexistent tears.  
  
Ray smiled in kind.  
  
"I was suppose to have Dr. MARIE CHARLES! The greatest psychologist of the twenty-first century!" Diane hastily stubbed out her still-good cigarette and reached into the pack for a new one.  
  
"I know," Ray said comfortingly, now placed strategically behind Diane giving her tightrope-tense shoulders a gentle massage.   
  
"Then for Jane to stand up and say it was all a hoax, that Dr. Charles never existed in the first place!" She seemed so flustered that she couldn't think of what Jane's cause for her actions were.  
  
"I know," Ray said again, sighing in pity to himself again.  
  
"And then! And then!" Diane raised a shaky finger haphazardly in Ray's direction, and he immediately froze.  
  
Diane's eye twitched as she turned in her seat to face Ray, balanced on her knees and her finger poking into his breastbone. "What did she mean by "Ray's not the last person you're ever going to love"?"   
  
"Hmm? What was THAT about Ray? Would you like to fill me in on a little something?" There was a fire behind her eyes that threatened him to lie.  
  
"I-I-I…I…" He stuttered, stepping away from the chair as she followed him, her finger still against his breastbone and the fire blazing in her eyes. He backed away, one of his hands posed defensively in front of him while the other searched wildly behind him for anything solid.  
  
"You wouldn't happen to be keeping any secrets from me, would you?" She spat. If she only had a head full of snakes, she could have turned him to stone right there on the spot.  
  
"N-Now Diane…" But he was suddenly cut off as his hand found the doorknob and he immediately twisted it unlocked. The door swung open behind him and he went crashing onto his back in the middle of the hallway, right in front of everyone.  
  
He sat up on his elbows as Diane disappeared into her office, the door still open. He rubbed at his aching breastbone, afraid to move.  
  
Suddenly, a blue thing flew through the air and landed on his face. He pulled it away, recognizing it as the silk shirt Jane had bought him on the street, the one he had later given to Diane after they had gotten back together.  
  
"I want you out of here Ray!" Diane came back to the door, holding onto the doorframe and looking down at him as if he were a piece of crud.   
  
"But Dee!-" He began to protest, pushing himself up from the floor.   
  
"Let me put it in English," She generously formed her lips around the words. "YOU ARE FIRED!"   
  
Ray turned away from her, toward all the faces who had their jaws cradled on the carpet. He sucked in his breath and stuck out his chest, determined to leave with what little decency he had left.  
  
"And by the way!" Diane called after him as he pushed through the crowd of co-workers.   
  
"The sex SUCKED!"  
  
And with that, the Old-Cow-Turned-New got a new bell and an Old-Bull-Made-Hamburger became yesterday's dinner…  
  
  
THE END  
  
  
I hope this was as fun to read as it was to write!!! :) There will always be more, so keep your grass fresh and hide your footballs!  



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